Dead Sea tourism more tolerable with fly-eating trashcans?

Two designers devised a lid design for trash cans that lures in fruit flies, trapping them in a tiny death chamber – gruesome but, hey, your kitchen will be insect-free. If this could expand to ensnare regular-issue flies, this duo stands to make a mint selling to Dead Sea resorts in Israel and Jordan.

Warm-weather travel around the Dead Sea becomes intolerable as swarms of six-legged visitors follow your every move. We’re talking millions of pesky flies that dive-bomb your food, mate on your drink, and get stuck on your lotion-lathered limbs. It’s the worst aspect of summer travel here – and while they don’t bite – they do disgust.

You’d expect to encounter nature while hiking to Lot’s Cave or soaking in Ma’an Hot Springs, but it’s another thing altogether to get covered in critters while lolling poolside at a swanky resort.

Hotels and restaurants have yet to solve the problem of insects who congregate (and breed) everywhere there’s fresh water – and Jordan’s recent rainstorms will guarantee an especially strong fly season.

A variation on these bins may be the solution.

According to designers Chang Shih-hsun and Hung Jui-yuan the slits on the bottom of their “Fly Catcher” bin allow odors to arise, attracting the flies. Bugs “check-in” to this death hotel, but they don’t check-out until the owner empties the unit (after the bugs starve to death). Last year the duo won a Red Dot award for their prototype design.

My own fly-trapping technique is to set a shallow dish of fruit juice adjacent to where I sit outside; it seems more attractive to bugs than I am. I can accept being less sweet that orange juice, but am I inadvertently fueling future fly generations?

Helpful Stranger – thanks for the tip – will give the wine/soap scheme a try this summer. Love the ecological solution of fish eating bug eggs – but the Dead Sea is plagued by black flies, not mosquitoes – do you think the same strategy could work?

And Sol? Not “promoting” this contraption, simply putting it out there – and ideally stirring up some thought and commentary (and thanks for yours!).

Yes,noted and thanks.I would prefer a solution that engages fruit flies for servicing a cause-i.e maybe for the decomposition of trash-some sort of supervised composting that takes into consideration their own natural cycle of life and gives them the freedom of choice to stay or leave the premises and or/to reproduce and increase the flow of tourism in a sustainable natural environment context.I am not a scientist but would love to hear that the Dead Sea becomes the place where Life flows through once again.

This article reflects the inability of humans to be true to their soft spoken preaching.An article appearing on your website-that supposedly proclaims to be adhering to the ecological mission of finding the balance between nature’s kingdoms and the human one,is promoting a machine that was awarded for design -yet suggesting of using this to exterminate fruit flies-for us humans are surely above them and thus we can certainly kill them for our comfort and business tourism promoting targets.Well ,this appearing on your site of green+prophet in Middle East where Israel and other peace seeking nations have gathered- while reminiscent of the attitude the German nation adopted during the Nazi era in regards with the Jewisha dn other ones,simply amazes me.A distortion of high ideals and betrayal of principles-a complete lack of an ethical code on your behalf surely cannot be whitewashed that easily.How does this sound to you,too extreme maybe?

Looks like a nice design, though I would hope they included a step-system for opening the lid before they put them in public. I doubt people want to lift the lids of public trashcans with their hands, and so the garbage, at least with Israelis, will end up on the ground around the can instead.

But on the other hand, if the flies lay their eggs in standing water, couldn’t one do by the dead sea what they do in Thailand and other tropical places to get rid of mosquitoes: Have pots and barrels of water with aquarium fish in them that eat the eggs?

And lastly a tip to you, Laurie. Instead of the glass of orange juice, try half a glass of red wine and add a strong dish-soap or similar, and the flies wont bother you ever again.